Tom Clancy - Red Storm Rising

"As Marshal Rozhkov told us, Pavel Leonidovich, we are promised political and diplomatic maskirovka, " a general pointed out.

"I have no doubt that our comrades in the KGB, and our skillful political leadership, will perform miracles." The room just might have functioning bugs, after all. "But is it not asking too much to expect that the Imperialists-as much as they fear and hate us, as active as their agents and spy satellites are-will fail to note a doubling of our training activity? We know that NATO increases its readiness when we go into major unit training, and their preparedness will automatically be increased by their, own spring training cycles. If we continue our training beyond the normal pattern, they will be even more alert. Achieving full combat readiness requires that we do too many things out of the ordinary. If nothing else, East Germany is rife with Western spies. NATO will notice. NATO will react. They will meet us on the border with everything in their collective arsenals.

"If, on the other hand, we attack with what we have-now!-we have the advantage. Our men are not off skiing in the fucking Alps! Zhukov-4 is designed to cycle from peace to war in forty-eight hours. There is no way possible for NATO to react in so little time. They'll take forty-eight hours to get their intelligence information organized and presented to their ministers. By that time our shells will be falling on the Fulda Gap, and our tanks will be advancing behind them!"

"Too many things can go wrong!" CINC-West rose so swiftly that the towel nearly came off his waist. His left hand grabbed downward while his right fist shook at the younger man. "What about traffic control? What about training our men in their new battle equipment? What about getting my Frontal Aviation pilots ready for combat operations against the Imperialists? There-right there is an insurmountable problem! Our pilots need at least a month of intensive training. And so do my tankers, and so do my gunners, and so do my riflemen."

If you knew your job, they would be ready now, you worthless, whore chasing son of a bitch! Alekseyev thought but did not dare to say aloud. CINC-West was a man of sixty-one who liked to demonstrate his manly prowess-boasted of it-to the detriment of his professional duties. Alekseyev had heard that story often enough, whispered jovially in this very room. But CINC-West was politically reliable. Such is the Soviet system, the younger general reflected. We need fighting soldiers and what do we get with which to defend the Rodina? Political reliability! He remembered bitterly what had happened to his father in 1958. But Alekseyev did not allow himself to begrudge the Party its control of the armed forces. The Party was the State, after all, and he was a sworn servant of the State. He had learned these truisms at his father's knee. One more card to play:

"Comrade General, you have good officers commanding your divisions, regiments, and battalions. Trust them to know their duties." It couldn't hurt to wave the standards of the Red Army, Alekseyev reasoned.

Rozhkov stood, and everyone in the room strained to hear his pronouncement. "What you say has merit, Pavel Leonidovich, but do we gamble with the safety of the Motherland?" He shook his head, quoting doctrine exactly, as he had been doing for too many years. "No. We rely on surprise, yes, on the first weighted blow to blast open a path for the daring thrust of our mechanized forces. And we will have our surprise. The Westerners will not wish to believe what is happening, and with the Politburo soothing them even as we prepare the first blow, we will have our strategic surprise. The West will have perhaps three days-four at most-to know what is coming, and even then they will not be mentally prepared for us."

The officers followed Rozhkov from the room to rinse the sweat from their bodies with cold-water showers. Ten minutes later, refreshed and dressed in full uniform, the officers reassembled in a second-floor banquet room. The waiters, many of them KGB informers, noted the subdued mood and quiet conversations that frustrated their efforts to listen in. The generals knew that KGB's Lefortovo prison was a bare kilometer away.

"Our plans?" CINC-Southwest asked his deputy.

"How many times have we played this war game?" Alekseyev responded. "All the maps and formulae we have examined for years. We know the troop and tank concentrations. We know the routes, the highways, the crossroads that we must use, and those that NATO will use. We know our mobilization schedules, and theirs. The only thing we don't know is whether our carefully laid plans will in fact work. We should attack at once. Then the unknowns will work against both sides equally."

"And if our attack goes too well, and NATO relies on a nuclear defense?" the senior officer asked. Alekseyev acknowledged the importance and grave unpredictability of the point.

"They might do that anyway. Comrade, all of our plans depend heavily on surprise, no? A mixture of surprise and success will force the West to consider nuclear weapons-"

"Here you are wrong, my young friend," CINC-Southwest chided. "The decision to use nuclear weapons is political. To prevent their use is also a political exercise for which time is required."

"But if we wait over four months-how can we be assured of strategic surprise?" Alekseyev demanded.

"Our political leadership has promised it."

"The year I entered Frunze Academy, the Party told us the date on which we would surely have 'True Communism in our lifetime.' A solemn promise. That date was six years ago."

"Such talk is safe with me, Pasha, I understand you. But if you do not learn to control your tongue-"

"Forgive me, Comrade General. We must allow for the chance that surprise will not be achieved. 'In combat, despite the most careful preparation, risks cannot be avoided,"' Alekseyev quoted from the syllabus of the Frunze Academy. " 'Attention must therefore be given, and the most detailed plans prepared, for every reasonable exigency of the overall operation. For this reason, the unsung life of a staff officer is among the most demanding of those honored to serve the State."'

"You have the memory of a kulak, Pasha." CINC-Southwest laughed, filling his deputy's glass with Georgian wine. "But you are correct."

"Failure to achieve surprise means that we are forcing a campaign of attrition on a vast scale, a high-technology version of the '14-'18 war."

"Which we will win." CINC-Ground sat down next to Alekseyev.

"Which we will win," Alekseyev agreed. All Soviet generals accepted the premise that the inability to force a rapid decision would force a bloody war of attrition that would grind each side down equally. The Soviets had far more reserves of men and material with which to fight such a war. And the political will to use them. "If and only if we are able to force the pace of battle, and if our friends in the Navy can prevent the resupply of NATO from America. NATO has war stocks of material to sustain them for roughly five weeks. Our pretty, expensive fleet must close the Atlantic."

"Maslov." Rozhkov beckoned to the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy. "We wish to hear your opinion of the correlation of forces in the North Atlantic."

"Our mission?" Maslov asked warily.

"If we fail to achieve surprise in the West, Andrey Petravich, it will be necessary for our beloved comrades in the Navy to isolate Europe from America," Rozhkov pronounced. He blinked hard at the response.

"Give me a division of airborne troops, and I can fulfill that task," Maslov responded soberly. He held a glass of mineral water, and had been careful to avoid drink on this cold February night. "The question is whether our strategic stance at sea should be offensive or defensive. The NATO navies-above all the United States Navy-is a direct threat to the Rodina. It alone has the aircraft and aircraft carriers with which to attack the homeland, at the Kola Peninsula. In fact, we know that they have plans to do exactly that."